


Hello My Name Is Harry

by abrighteryellow



Series: Not That Gone [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, American AU, Famous Harry, Flirting, M/M, Non-Famous Louis Tomlinson, Older Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, School Reunion, Secret Crush, TY for the inspo Chris Evans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 02:13:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18983122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abrighteryellow/pseuds/abrighteryellow
Summary: Louis’s 20-year high school reunion takes a turn when a celebrity classmate – who also happens to be Louis’s long unrequited crush – unexpectedly shows up.A famous/not-famous AU inspired by Chris Evans.





	Hello My Name Is Harry

**Author's Note:**

> I still can't believe that meatball showed up to his class reunion IN A NAMETAG the weekend after Endgame came out. So, of course, I had to make it a Larry thing. Thank you, [crinkle-eyed-boo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KimmieRocks/pseuds/crinkle-eyed-boo) for the quick and dirty beta. All remaining errors are mine and mine alone!

“Lewis, could you get that constipated look off your face, please? It’s ruining my evening.”

Louis takes a pull of his Stella and stares daggers at Niall.

“Okay, never mind. That one’s worse. You can go back to constipated.”

“I am in a mood, Niall,” Louis states plainly. “A mood is where I am.”

“Yeah, I _get_ that.”

“And do you understand _why_ I’m in a mood?”

“I think the first 200 times you explained it were pretty clear, but by all means…”

“ _Why_ are we here? Why. Because we could be doing the same thing over at Sal’s right now. Drinking the same beer, listening to the same boring Top 40, talking to the same people. And we wouldn’t have had to shell out $70 for it.”

“You want $70?” Niall takes out his wallet with a sigh. “I’ll give you $70.”

Louis stops his hand. “We _live_ here, Niall. High school reunions are for people who moved away and don’t actually see each other every day.”

“Didn’t realize you were so bored of me.”

“Shut the fuck up, please. You know that’s not what I’m saying." He waves a hand vaguely. "Look around: this place is full of other townies. What’s the point?”

“Not entirely full–”

“And the people who aren’t, I don’t really care to talk to. You know, if we haven’t seen each other in 15 years, there’s probably a reason for it.”

“Louis.”

“Like, ‘Oh _hey_ , Jeff. Want to relive the days when you mocked me _relentlessly_ for wearing blush in the musicals? Good times.’”

“ _Lou.”_

_“What.”_

“I can’t believe he actually came,” Niall chuckles. “Holy shit.”

Louis follows Niall’s eyeline to the far side of the room, right inside the doors and just beyond the sign in table. A small crowd is swarming the newcomer, but Louis can still make out loose coffee-colored waves brushing one broad shoulder. It’s beyond stupid, but his chest tightens.

Louis tosses his own fringe out of his eyes – he’s about three weeks overdue for a trim, but what else is new. “So?”

“His movie made, like, two point fuck billion dollars last weekend. That’s _billion,_ Louis.”

“Don’t they always?”

“Objectively, no.”

Niall goes on, something about James Cameron and box office figures being adjusted for inflation, but Louis is only half listening. All of his neurons are focused on watching his high school crush, who’s spent most of the last decade playing one of the most beloved superheroes in the entire canon in a massive film franchise that’s transformed the industry, move through the same hotel ballroom that hosts his granddad’s bi-monthly Rotary Club meetings.

“Fantastic. Now tonight’s going to be all about him,” he complains, as said crush takes a Sam Adams offered to him by some fawning ex-classmate. Disgusting.

“I don’t think so, man. Liam’s stayed in touch with him, he says he’s cool.”

Louis snorts, humorlessly. “He would.”

“Okay, you know what? You need to calm down. Do you need another shrimp?”

“Soggy-ass shrimp,” Louis mutters. “Fucking bullshit Holiday Inn.”

Niall turns his whole body to look at Louis directly, studying his frown.

“He probably wouldn’t be here if he didn’t want to be. You don’t have to be all, like, defensive. He lived here, he knows what it looks like.”

“Yeah, but that’s not his life anymore, is it?”

It’s not a regular thing, that Louis feels any kind of shame for staying in the town where he was raised. He could have left too – not for the type of stardom that has any unnamed companion dubbed a “mystery woman” by the tabloids, but for...whatever. A different teaching job, a different suburb, a different dive with 2-for-1 Wednesdays and All-You-Can-Eat fries on Fridays. It just so happens that he _likes_ it here. He likes that he’s never had to go without seeing Niall for more than two weeks at a time. He likes that he can go over to his mom’s every time one of his younger siblings goes to a dance, so he can demand dozens of posed photos. It’s a great place, where he’s from.

It’s only when he’s looking at it through _his_ eyes that Louis struggles to see it that way.

Suddenly, he’s much more aware of all the discount department store ensembles in this room, including his own. He could swear that the water damage stain in the corner of the ceiling just grew in diameter. The carpet is depressingly threadbare in places.

It’s not bad, it’s just ordinary. And the boy he’d been too afraid to ask out isn’t that. He was never that.

“You should go say hi,” Niall says, because he’s ridiculous.

Louis scoffs into the neck of his beer. “Unlikely.”

“You don’t develop amnesia when you get famous, Lou. You think he’s not going to remember that you drove him home from play practice _every day?_ You guys were friends.”

Louis wishes he could snap his fingers and wipe his own memory of it. Because what chance did purposely off-key Weezer singalongs and Burger King runs have against a handful of Academy Awards ceremonies and a sold-out Broadway play?

Most people get the chance to see their high school obsessions fade into spotty recollections. Not him, though. No, Louis was never that lucky. Instead, he saw a dimpled, too-wide smile sharpen into a knowing and sexy-as-hell grin, a boy with no control over his lanky limbs grow into a globally recognized symbol of masculinity.

He could have at least had the common courtesy to start dressing like a catalog dad or become a Facebook conservative, like everyone else Louis had ever thought about in high school. But this one only got better and more beautiful and, even worse, he was _everywhere._ Here, Louis had wrongly assumed, he’d be safe.

“Whatever.” Louis shoves the heel of his hand into Niall’s shoulder, until he’s no longer blocking the rest of the room. “Mark my words, Niall. He’ll be here long enough to post a couple of Instagrams, show the whole world what a down-to-earth guy he is, and then we’ll never hear from him ever again.”

Louis takes his phone out of his pocket to look. Not that he follows the guy. He just...checks in, from time to time.

His last post was a photo of his all-American dog sleeping peacefully in his all-American arms. Louis almost forgets himself and double taps it.

“He’s walking over here,” Niall warns suddenly, out of the corner of his mouth.

Louis snaps his gaze up to Niall and then straight ahead of them.

He’s about six feet away and closing the distance too quickly, half a smile on his face. Louis swivels his neck to look behind them, but there’s nothing there – not unless his destination is the blank faux wall separating this event space from the one next door.

Louis presses his home button, disappearing the Instagram interface from the screen, then locks it and shoves it back into his slacks, just as other man comes to a stop directly in front of him.

“Louis, hey.”

His cardigan and t-shirt combo _look_ informal, but they’d probably cover two or three months of Louis’s mortgage payments. He can tell, because they’re flawlessly constructed and perfectly fitted, molding around the lean muscled chest and biceps Louis last got a good look at when he’d “carelessly” left his TV on the cable channel running a marathon leading up to that overwrought, hyper-capitalist, three-hour superhero epic. His senses are on the verge of revolt, but his brain doesn’t truly short-circuit until Louis notices the white rectangle disrupting the otherwise clean lines of the deceptively simple outfit.

“You’re wearing a nametag,” Louis blurts out.

Harry points at Louis’s chest with his drink, that damn dimple deepening. “So are you.”

The mental image of Harry Styles – whose announcement that he’d be leaving the global smash film series that made him a star inspired countless reaction videos of fans weeping into their merchandise – scrawling his name onto a sticky nametag from a Staples family pack and then slapping it onto his well-insured torso is so preposterous, it takes Louis more time than it should to process that Harry definitely remembers him.

There’s a sharp pain that feels distinctly like a bony elbow to his side, and then he’s back.

“I think they’d probably make an exception for people who have their handprints in front of that Chinese theater.”

Harry raises his eyebrows, appearing far too smug for Louis’s liking. “You saw that?”

“I heard about it,” Louis says coolly.

Harry juts his chin out, not quite laughing, and Louis traces the line of his jaw with his eyes.

“How’s it going, Niall? We had AP English together, right?”

Niall meets Harry’s hand and shakes it heartily. Louis nearly winces when he realizes that he ruined that opportunity for himself with his outburst.

“Fucking right we did. Your essay on _The Sound and the Fury_ killed. Mrs. Davis almost handed the class over to you.”

“Nialler, come on, don’t bore the man.”

“I’m sorry?” Harry shifts his stance and narrows his eyes at Louis, but a hint of a smile remains.

“That’s in the past, is all I mean,” Louis tries to explain. “For most of us, but especially you.”

“Do you really think so?”

Louis rolls his eyes before he can curb the impulse. “I’d say so, yeah.”

“Hm,” Harry pushes out his bottom lip, appearing to contemplate Louis’s assessment. “Actually, I never stopped writing. I have this screenplay I’ve been working on for years, whenever I have time. I know that sounds like entitled Hollywood bullshit, but I don’t think I even care if it ever gets made.”

Louis’s heart pulses traitorously in his chest. The skits Harry wrote for Senior Week were legendary. To this day, he’s never been as proud of him as he was the day the class erupted into a standing ovation at the end of the assembly.

“Maybe you could give it a read sometime. Tell me what you think.”

He _must_ be joking. He’s an actor, how’s Louis supposed to tell?

Harry _seems_ to be regarding him genuinely, waiting for a response.

 _“Me?”_ Louis finally squeaks. “What do I have to do with it?”

“Liam said you’re the drama teacher here,” Harry shrugs. “I’d love to get your thoughts.”

“You asked about me?”

“I think I see–” Niall cuts in, rising on his tip toes to pretend to look around the room. “–Yep, there he is! Gonna go say hello, see you boys later.”

Louis sends silent curses to his back as Niall scurries away, so furious at being abandoned that he can’t bring himself to care whether or not Harry notices.

“I did,” Harry says after a moment.

“Did what?”

He takes a sip of his beer. “Ask about you.”

Something hot and fizzy courses through Louis. When they’d lost touch, he had assumed that Harry was content to let that happen. It wasn’t what he’d wanted, of course, but he hadn’t known, hadn’t been able to figure out, how to keep up a casual friendship long distance. His emails or IMs would have betrayed him, he was sure. Harry had tried a few times, but Louis’s responses were short and impersonal, so terrified was he of letting something as telling as an “I miss you” slip through. Eventually, they stopped all together. Not two semesters into their first year of college.

Well, if he’s here for an apology, he’s going home empty-handed. Louis can’t go to a movie or log onto Twitter without seeing his face. He doesn’t owe Harry a damn thing.

“Oh. I didn’t think you’d...it was a long time ago.”

“Yeah, but we had fun, right?” Harry prompts. “Those afternoons?”

“It was fun, yeah.”

There’s resignation in his eyes at Louis’s lack of enthusiasm. “So. I don’t know, I just thought…”

“Harry,” Louis interrupts. “Why are you here?”

He gestures to the banner over the bar. “Class of ‘99. Go Lions.”

“Thank you, I know that. But don’t you have better things to do? Wouldn’t think this is your scene.”

“What’s my scene, Louis?” he challenges. “I’d love to know.”

“Doing lines in the bathroom at the Chateau Marmont?”

Harry chuckles, and it makes Louis want to hit him. Kiss him. Whatever.

“Yeah, I get paid. I’m lucky. But I didn’t go into acting just for the money, Louis. I did it because being on stage, those cast parties at Jade’s house, learning lines with you...those were the only times in high school when I felt like I really belonged. Seems like it stuck with you too. But if thinking I’m some rich asshole makes you feel better, then please do. It’s not _not_ true.”

Louis swallows, taking in Harry’s words. He’s silent for just long enough for Stan’s wife Laura to slip in between them and ask Harry for a selfie. He obliges, but shuts down her attempts at conversation with a firm but kind “nice to meet you.”

“So, who’s your plus one?” he asks once she’s gone. “Is there some ingenue wandering around here somewhere, avoiding the dessert table?”

Harry smirks at Louis’s change of subject. “Nope.”

“Not that I really pay attention,” Louis says lightly, “but it seems like you take your mom and your sister to a lot of events. What’s that about?”

A waiter brushes close to them, forcing Louis to take a step forward. That charisma Harry’s had since he was 16 and probably even before keeps him there, like some kind of magnetic force.

“It probably means what you think it means,” Harry says pointedly, holding eye contact. “What about you? Do you have a husband and two beautiful children waiting for you at home?”

“Not even close.”

“I know.” His voice is as smooth as expensive scotch and lower now, just for Louis. “I asked Liam about that too.”

Over Harry’s shoulder Louis can see a small mob forming, excitedly clutching their phones. They can wait.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Didn’t I?”

“Why did you come tonight?”

“Because I went here, and I wanted to see my friends.” Harry looks down at his hands and the flash of vulnerability goes straight to Louis’s dick. “And because reunions are for taking care of unfinished business.”

“And what’s yours?” It comes out breathier than Louis intended.

“Well, there was this boy, and I never told him how much I liked him.”

A flash of nostalgia overtakes Louis – racing to and from the Stop ‘n Shop for snacks in the ten minutes between school and rehearsal; Harry half-seriously belting Longstar’s “Amazed” to make Louis laugh; the beautiful torture of being the practice Maria to Harry’s Tony. He’d been so absorbed in his own resentment that he hadn’t considered that there’d been another side to all of it.

“So, you came all the way here to get laid,” Louis tests. “I wouldn’t think you’d have to travel for it.”

“Not to get laid,” Harry says, refusing to rise to his bait. “To finally take a chance I should have a long time ago.” Then he ducks his head down and puts his lips against Louis’s ear. “I wouldn’t mind it though.”

Louis can’t help it. His shoulders start to shake and before either of them knows what’s happening, he’s in full-blown hysterics, tears leaking out of his eyes.

Harry puts his beer down on the closest table and takes Louis’s shoulders with his hands, a bemused smile on his face. “What? Louis, what is it?”

“It’s just...you’re you!” he manages. “Like, it’s basically been decided that you have the best ass _in the country._ ”

Okay, so he saw it. Opening night, in fact.

“That’s only because they haven’t seen yours,” Harry teases, his dimple back with a vengeance.

Finally back in possession of his faculties, Louis fixes him with a stare.

“Neither have you, Curly.”

Harry takes the two fresh beers Niall – a saint – has brought over to them, hands one to Louis, then clinks the bottles together.

“The night is young.”

*****

_“Good morning, Lions! While it’s very exciting that our famous classmate joined us for last night’s reunion, we hope that you’ll respect Harry’s privacy and decline to speak to any reporters who may reach out to you. Thanks in advance for your cooperation and for celebrating 20 years!”_

Louis joins many of his friends in liking Liam’s post in the Facebook event for the reunion. Niall had texted him even earlier saying that some people they’d gone to school with had already gotten emails from _Access Hollywood_ and _The Daily Mail_ asking for details about Harry’s visit _._ Of course Liam, the most responsible class president they ever had, would be on top of it.

“Lou?”

Louis turns around in his desk chair to see Harry laying on his front and looking back at him, milky white shoulders stark against his charcoal sheets, green eyes still sleepy and soft.

No one would have a better story to sell than him, and Louis would rather die than cheapen it.

“Yeah, love?”

Harry whines a little in his throat and reaches a hand out behind him, wiggling his fingers.

Louis closes his laptop and pads over to his bed. He pulls up the duvet and slips back in. Harry shuffles in close, throwing an arm over Louis’s stomach and resting his head on his heart. It breaks a little, because how can this last?

“Haz,” Louis whispers, brushing a lock of hair out of Harry’s face. “Haz, should I wake you up sometime? Is there anywhere you need to be?”

Harry doesn’t open his eyes, just tightens his hold on Louis and exhales happily.

“I’m already here.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you're so moved, I'd love your kudos or comments. And here's the [Tumblr post](https://a-brighter-yellow.tumblr.com/post/185175380713/hello-my-name-is-harry-by-abrighteryellow) for your reblogging needs.


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